Mobile telephones have dramatically improved their capability as they quickly move into widespread use. Many new models are being introduced to the market, equipped with a variety of new functions on top of inherent voice communications function: for example, a communications function to connect to a communications network such as the Internet, an imaging function for a camera; and a positioning function to obtain current position and related map information.
The mobile telephone is usually mounted to a support called a cradle for storage purposes when it is not in use, for example, when the user is at home. Apart from providing safe storage for the mobile telephone, the function of the conventional mobile telephone cradle is limited to charging the mobile telephone.
In this manner, the conventional cradle only keeps the mobile telephone in good working order and never actively makes full use of the functions of the mobile telephone. PDA (Personal Digital Assistant) cradles are known to act to transfer stored data from a PDA to a personal computer or other external device. As mentioned previously, recent mobile telephones are equipped with better functions even in comparison to PDAs, but no cradle is proposed to exploit them.
For example, the communications and imaging functions are indispensable in various security and home control systems. If the system is capable of effectively making use of the functions of the mobile telephone, the system is made simple and inexpensive and becomes equipped with a capability to provide sophisticated, information-related collaboration service.
The present invention is conceived to address these issues and has an objective to provide a simple, but highly capable cradle which only requires the user to replace a mobile or other telephone on it; a security system including the cradle and a managing device; a telephone; and a monitoring method.